// PC GAMER — GAMING
'I drank from the chalice of blood': indie dev scrubs his game of AI-generated voice lines, having previously described the technology as 'anti-human and anti-art'
Refund offered for players who "still feel betrayed" over AI use in Future? No Thanks!
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Well, here's a headscratcher. Paolo Pedercini, developer of Future? No Thanks! recently admitted to using generative AI in his ecosocialist satire while also referring to the technology as "a technofascist, anti-human and anti-art project." Now, the developer has removed several AI generated voice lines from the game, following a backlash to his use of the very technology which the game lampoons.
You might remember Future? No Thanks! from another recent controversy, whereupon the game was briefly delayed after Steam held up its release while it reviewed some fleeting nudity in the game. Pedercini—who also goes by Mollieindustria—received considerable support during that debacle. But the reaction to Future? No Thanks' AI use has been rather less supportive, prompting Pedercini to rework the game and respond to the backlash.
Pedercini originally revealed his AI use in a blog post (via Rock, Paper, Shotgun). Apparently, the game contained several voice lines generated using text-to-speech, which Pedercini claimed, "used to be an uncontroversial technology and an early application of neural networks" before "AI bros started commercializing AI voices". Alongside this, the game also includes "a tiny fraction" of AI generated code, which Pedercini said he used for things like "fixing a shader I didn't write which broke after an update" as well as "finishing touches and minor debugging."
In this blog, Pedercini defended his AI use by pointing out that Future? No Thanks! "satirizes generative AI and the careless ways it can be used," adding that the "100% no-AI stance" adopted by many game developers "is very recent, and the game was being developed before a consensus emerged." He also cited his role as an academic and game design teacher, stating "I have to look into these tools which most of my students use, and I was trying to figure out if there are non-brain-rotting ways to do so."
Yet it seems these arguments failed to convince Pedercini's audience, as yesterday he published another blog post revealing he has now removed the offending TTS voice lines, replacing them with lines by human actors. Apparently, these lines were "recorded earlier this year," but Pedercini opted not to use them because he "thought the actual uncanny text-to-speech was funnier in that context."
Although Pedercini has removed the lines, he's clearly not happy about it. In the second blog, he stated that he believes that "the game is worse not, but only, like, 0.001% worse." He also included a "personal update" through which he responded more broadly to the backlash.
"Somebody from Bluesky (the Twitter/X clone) dragged me due to a post disclosing what I foolishly thought a minor use of generative-AI in Future? No Thanks!" he explained. "I gave versions of that statement multiple times before, whenever asked by festivals and events." He also pointed out that, per Valve's updated AI disclosure rules, "Steam doesn't require disclosure of generative AI for things like code assistance, so many people assume their favorite indie games don't use AI at all just because the developers stay mum".
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